“Never in my 23 years as a small business owner have I felt obstructed by our national government in my ability to operate, manage, and grow my business as I do now under President Trump,” wrote Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate co-owner Jody Hayden in a blog post in late July. “Like many small businesses, we’re feeling the effects of a very uncertain and volatile global economy.”
Grocer’s Daughter sources its ethically traded and sustainably grown chocolate from Ecuador. On its most recent shipment of bulk chocolate, valued at $171,500, the small business based in Empire paid a tariff of $24,725 after Trump raised duties on Ecuadorian products to 15 percent on July 31.
This reporting is made possible by the Northern Michigan Journalism Project, led by Bridge Michigan and Interlochen Public Radio, and funded by Press Forward Northern Michigan.
Very little cacao grows in the United States, so Grocer’s Daughter and other high quality chocolate businesses import nearly their entire supply. The devaluation of the U.S. dollar on international markets this year hasn’t helped matters.
“Extreme tariffs such as these are a reckless experiment at the expense of the American people,” wrote Hayden. “And these tariffs alienate the United States from dozens of our allies around the world.”
Tariffs and other federal policies have taken their toll throughout northern Michigan’s agriculture industry, raising costs, creating shortages and cutting research and other services that benefit farmers.
The federal policies have benefitted some, leveling the playing field between northwest Michigan wineries and European wineries and prompting Michigan wineries to buy Michigan glass, for example. But others have seen their profits shrink.
The tariffs compound an already difficult situation in the chocolate world. According to Hayden, global cocoa prices remain at historic highs this year after peaking at a whopping $12,700 per ton in 2024. Cocoa is still trading at more than $7,000 per ton—more than three times what the industry paid at the beginning of last year.
“We’re keeping a close eye on our costs, and any price increases you may see this year are a direct result of two major factors: the newly implemented 15 percent tariff on chocolate imports and the devaluation of the U.S. dollar—both driven by current national policies,” Hayden shared with her customers. “These challenges are real, but so is our commitment to quality, transparency and a better world.”
Last year Grocer’s Daughter increased prices slightly in response to record-high global cocoa prices, which Hayden said have now become the new norm in the industry. “We remain committed to making high-quality, ethically sourced chocolate—and to being transparent with you every step of the way.”
Coffee shortages, market chaos
John Arens, co-owner of the Glen Arbor-based Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company, told the Sun that tariffs “have had an awful effect on the entire coffee supply chain, especially the terrible 50 percent tariff on Brazil.”
In late July Trump announced that he would raise tariffs on goods imported to the United States from Brazil from 10 percent to 50 percent—a move largely seen as political retribution for the coup trial facing former president Jair Bolsonaro for the insurrection he allegedly incited in Brasilia on Jan. 8, 2023. (Trump has pardoned or commuted the sentences of all rioters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, who supported his own attempt to retain power after the 2020 election.)
According to Arens, Brazil supplies around 35-40% of the world’s higher-grade Arabica coffee beans.
“These are no longer economically viable in the U.S., which means it creates a vacuum that other nations can’t easily fill, creating shortages and market chaos,” said Arens. “This is on top of a bad year already, driven mostly by computerized commodity market trading.
“I sorta ‘get’ the idea behind some of the tariffs,” added Arens, “but the roll-out and market prep has been absolutely horrific. Among other things, America doesn’t have the climate to grow coffee, so this part at least seems pretty ill-considered and uninformed, frankly.”
Price hikes on fertilizer, tractor parts
U.S. farmers import fertilizer primarily from Canada, which is a top supplier of potash. This fall, when Leelanau growers make that transaction, they’ll pay an extra 10 percent tariff.
If they need to upgrade or repair equipment—as farmer Jim Bardenhagen does to his Deutz-Fahr tractors—they’ll pay even more. The German company announced in April that it would pass the cost of tariffs on its engines to American customers in the form of higher prices.
“It makes the cost of producing hay more expensive,” said Bardenhagen.
He also worries about proposed significant cuts next year to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) by the Trump administration, which includes eliminating the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and slashing funding for climate and weather research. That could impact forecasting accuracy.
“We get information from them daily on wind and rain,” said Bardenhagen. “We live by the weather.”
A surprise freeze in late April this year—just as cherry buds were coming into bloom—destroyed much of the region’s crop. According to local cherry farmer and founder of the Michigan Cherry Grower Alliance, Leisa Eckerle-Hankins, northern Michigan farmers harvested 33 million tart cherries this year—down from 100 million in 2024.
A silver lining for the industry was that Poland and Turkey, whose subsidized cheap imports upset the domestic cherry market, also experienced spring freezes in their orchards. The lower supply could boost the price local farmers get for tart cherries.
Research at risk, SNAP eliminated
Nikki Rothwell, who coordinates Michigan State University’s Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Center in Leelanau County, supports local farmers through research into erratic weather, plant disease and invasive species. For her two decades of work to help orchards survive these challenges, she was named Cherry Industry Person of the Year at this year’s National Cherry Festival in Traverse City.
Her work is funded in part by grants through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Specialty Crop Research Initiative, which were recently unfrozen by the federal government. But will research papers that study the hurdles facing local cherry farmers find peer reviewers—a key step in the academic process? Rothwell worries about continued federal funding to help tackle these climate-related existential challenges.
“They seem to be cutting back on research dollars,” worried Jim Bardenhagen. “That helped us solve some of our problems with invasive species like spotted wing drosophila and brown rot. Rain followed by heat are breeding grounds for them.”
Drastic cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the “Big Beautiful Bill” that Trump signed on July 4 will make the program less accessible to qualified SNAP recipients, which will decrease sales of fresh local produce from Bardenhagen and others at local farmers markets and food pantries.
Early this year the USDA also terminated the Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program, cutting over $1 billion in funding designed to help schools and food banks buy local foods from farmers. Bardenhagen and other local growers sell their fruit wholesale to the Northwest Food Coalition, which has partnered with the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians to secure LFPA funding.
“These funds have significantly increased our ability to support local farms and provide healthy, fresh foods to our network of food pantries and meal sites across the northwest Michigan region,” Northwest Food Coalition coordinator Rachael Cougler told the Sun. LFPA has allowed the Coalition to purchase $178,000 worth of products from the local agricultural market since last September, and approximately $530,000 since the start of the grant, she said.
“In the past year alone, we have been able to share 136,000 pounds of local, nutritious foods with our local food pantries and meal sites—allowing these foods to be more accessible to our vulnerable community members—including children, seniors, and veterans.
“With recent federal changes, we are losing the remainder of this funding at the end of 2026. Our Coalition has purchased and supported around 30 different farms in our region—with around a third of them being farms found in Leelanau County,” said Cougler.
“The loss of this federal program, and other food support programs, will have a huge impact on our network and families who are already struggling to make ends meet—but it will also have a ripple effect on our farmers, agricultural workers, and our communities.”
Wine bottles, European competition
Local wineries may be more insulated from the trade wars than other industries because their main product costs are grapes and labor, which come from within the United States.
Blake Lougheed, winemaker for Harmony Estate Wineries, which includes Bel Lago, Dune Bird and French Valley, told the Sun they used to source their bottles with cheap Chinese glass that came through Canada.
“That glass is now tariffed at a rate that makes it cost nearly the same as domestic glass, so we are buying all of our glass from a Traverse City warehouse now,” said Lougheed. “It’s more expensive, but also a better product.”
The locally made product costs 25 percent more, and since glass represents only 8 percent of the total cost of the bottle, it only adds 30 cents to each bottle of wine.
The upside of these tariffs is that they may give northern Michigan wineries a local advantage over mass-produced European and California wines.
“We can’t compete on a cost level with big European wineries,” said Lougheed. “If they’re tariffed, it finally puts us in the ballpark of being able to compete on a store shelf. We can’t make a Pinot Grigio as cheap as a $9 Italian Pinot, but if that same wine is now $12, we’re close.
“Michigan is uniquely going to benefit if the European Union wines are tariffed. California wineries will likely be hurt worse because many of them are huge producers where each bottle has nearly zero profit margin, and a more expensive bottle matters.”
